The Leaf Label

20/12/2024

Leaf 2024



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Bit of… .trax

See you in 2025 🫡
Full release playlist in bio

20/12/2024

Craig Kirkpatrick-Whitby (1964 - 2024)

It was with great sadness that we learned of the passing of Craig Kirkpatrick-Whitby, the guiding light of the MINING collective, whose Chimet album we released earlier this year.

When Matthew Bourne first brought the album he’d created with PJ Davy and Craig to us, it immediately had us under its spell. There was an otherworldly atmosphere to it that drew us right in. It was only later that we learned of its back story. We knew a 67-minute album of data driven soundscapes and improvisations wouldn’t be an easy sell, but felt strongly that with careful presentation and a fair wind, its quality would shine through and find its audience. Very much the sort of project Leaf has been proud to put its name to over the past three decades.

Craig had been battling cancer for a number of years, with significant health implications. The MINING project took a while to shape and Craig was central to everything, even while undergoing several major operations during that time. It certainly wasn’t a given that he would see it released into the world, but his optimism, enthusiasm and energy for the project saw to it that he did. Indeed, he was busy planning what the next MINING release would be throughout his battles.

Craig didn’t come from a music background, but it was a lifetime passion. His expertise was in the numbers, and the numbers have led him on a fascinating life to which we’ve only been privy to snapshots - data scientist, inventor and sailor. It’s not easy to sum Craig up, he had plenty to say and it often felt like his thought processes would be firing off in several directions at once, but ultimately his enthusiasm and ambition was infectious. He sat down with for an in-depth interview about MINING and that’s probably the best insight you could get if you hadn’t spent time in his company. New Scientist have kindly made the article free to view for a short time.

Craig was extremely proud of Chimet, and that recognition in winning the Neptune Prize this year made it all the sweeter. A fine musical legacy we hope will continue to find its audience.

18/12/2024

It’s the final week of THE GREAT LEAF SALE! They said it couldn’t be done. And they’re correct, because we’re ignoring the fact there are two more weeks of the year left. But up to now we have discounted one Leaf release every week, in the run up to our thirtieth year.

“Celebrating the anniversary of any record label is always a strange thing” – so began the press release for Check The Water, a compilation we put together to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Leaf. It’s still true, and it seems like a good place to finish our GREAT LEAF SALE celebrations.

It’s got all your early Leaf favourites - Caribou, Efterklang, Murcof and Susumu Yokota are all there. It’s even got the first recording by a certain Kieran Hebden to go under his Four Tet moniker.

At the time we said our “releases over the past decade hold little in common besides a united focus of artistry and innovation, exploring the places where electronica, jazz, classical, rock, folk and pop music meet.” Again, this still rings true twenty years later. We’re nothing but consistent in our inconsistency.

The Check The Water digital download is available for FREE and the last few CDs are discounted until January 1st. Season of giving and all that. See bio for details.

In the meantime, we’ll go away and figure out what a 30th anniversary should look like.

10/12/2024

It’s week forty-eight of THE GREAT LEAF SALE. Very much the home stretch. We’re taking it all the way back to 2001 - down the steep narrow stairs to Eardrum’s studio demi-monde in Clerkenwell, where you are greeted by the unmistakeable notes of an old Sun Ra tape and a sense of being deep underground.

Side Effects is the second album by Eardrum – the work of Lou Ciccotelli and Richard Olatunde Baker. Their orbits have taken in the likes of Laika, Spleen, Mass, Kevin Martin’s God and Ice projects as well as Cath Coffey, NT, the poet Akure Wal, Tony Allen, Mulatu Astatke and Seun Kuti.

The record is a testament to the methods of both improvisation – afrobeat, free jazz, musique concrète and carnival street music – and the insularity of studio manipulation. Inspiration comes from Miles Davis, Lee Perry, Fela Kuti, the limitless influence of African music and the aural chaos of London life.

Side Effects was the last of three albums designed for us in our early days by v23, the venerated design team of Vaughan Oliver and Chris Bigg, famous for their artwork for 4AD.

The album is discounted on CD and digital until December 15th.

Link in bio.

03/12/2024

4 stars and some wonderful words for ‘The Undreamt-Of Centre’ in The Australian today courtesy of Doug Wallen.

You can hear the music live as part of ‘Afterworld’ - my collaboration with choreographer Sue Healey at Sydney Festival Jan 7-11th. Link in comments.

03/12/2024

It’s week forty-seven of THE GREAT LEAF SALE, and we have something that stands proudly alone in the Leaf catalogue – namely an album ‘covered’ in its entirety.

Radioland is the work of Matthew Bourne, Franck Vigroux and installation artist Antoine Schmitt, produced to mark the 40th anniversary of the release of Kraftwerk’s Radio-Activity. Radioland was released nine years ago this week, which means you’ll be in good time to mark the 50th anniversary of Radio-Activity next year!

While the melodies and rhythms of the original album are briefly referenced, this is not so much a cover version as a discovery version, a launchpad for analogue and digital exploits that is far truer to the spirit of Kraftwerk than mere duplication. After all, it was Kraftwerk who constructed the grid from which myriad adventures in electronic music have proceeded. This album is an homage to their vast influence.

Radioland weaves its own, highly individual mesh of electronics, including blizzards of analogue, antique futurist percussive patterns, rewired melodies, processed versions of sounds recently discovered in space by NASA, short and longwave radio samples, including snatches of R&B and hip-hop, whose synthetic tones find their ancestry in Kraftwerk, hurricanes of modulated electronics, vocoders ebbing and throbbing; it’s like the detritus of 40 light years of electropop all colliding at once.

Radioland: Radio-Activity Revisited is discounted on LP, CD and digital until December 8th.

The LP is in a deluxe gatefold sleeve with a CD included. The CD release is packaged in a hardback 20-page book. Both include liner notes by David Stubbs, author of Future Days: Krautrock and the Building of Modern Germany and photographs and visuals from the project.

The Leaf Label album bundle is also reduced.

🔗 bio

26/11/2024

Who’s ready for week forty-six of THE GREAT LEAF SALE? It’s another anniversary edition, this time marking sixteen years since Murcof’s release of The Versailles Sessions.

In the summer of 2007, Fernando Corona completed a site-specific commission for Les Grandes Eaux Nocturnes, an annual festival of sound, light and water at Château de Versailles in France. A suite of music was composed specifically for the grand evening fountain display in the Jardin du Roi. And The Versailles Sessions was born.

The six compositions prepared for the project derive entirely from recordings of 17th century baroque instruments (including harpsichord, viola da gamba, flute and violin) and a mezzo soprano. Corona then weaved his magic in combining classical instrumentation with exquisite electronic soundscapes and the aching use of space, like only he can.

The Versailles Session is discounted on CD and digital until December 1st.

The five album bundle is also reduced accordingly.

Bio for details.

20/11/2024

It’s week forty-five of THE GREAT LEAF SALE, and time to put another Nightports album under your noses.

Nightports w/ Tom Herbert is the third in a series of collaborative albums from musician-producers Adam Martin and Mark Slater. As the title suggests, it features everyone’s favourite bass player – Tom Herbert. No offence to all the other excellent bass players we work with, but he’s worked with everyone, and we don’t make the rules.

Tom Herbert made his name as the bass player in Mercury Music Prize-nominated bands Polar Bear and The Invisible, and has become an in-demand collaborator and session musician, including work with Adele, Lana Del Rey and most recently The Smile. See?!

As with all of Nightports’ work, the album rewards close listening. They stay true to their manifesto in maintaining the essence of the original recordings. The processing never masks the organic source material, at times demonstrating the physicality of the instrument with detailed recordings of complete takes - the sound of the room, the creaking of strings and Herbert’s measured breathing. At other times they build more abstract, atmospheric layers from the parts.

Nightports w/ Tom Herbert is discounted on LP, CD and digital until November 24th.

The Nightports album bundle has also been reduced accordingly.

See bio for details.

19/11/2024

There’s something going down in the woods. SNAPPED ANKLES have announced their biggest tour to date, with a run of over thirty shows in the spring. UK support comes courtesy of The Sick Man Of Europe.

Tickets have just gone on sale: snappedankles.com/SEE-SNAPPS-ALIVE

That’s all we can tell you for now, but make sure you’re signed up to Snapped Ankles’ newsletter for the freshest forest gossip: snappedankles.com/DIAL-SNAPPS

15/11/2024

Week forty-four of THE GREAT LEAF SALE comes courtesy of Clue To Kalo.

One Way, It’s Every Way is the second album by Adelaide’s Mark Mitchell, released in 2005. As with his debut Come Here When You Sleepwalk (GREAT LEAF SALE #15), Mitchell was exploring the possibilities that home computers were opening up for musicians at the time, while never taking his eye off the art of song writing. It’s an ambitious record of psychedelia infused electronica - each track bursting with ideas, warmth, melody and left-turns. In another life, it was enormous.

One Way, It’s Every Way is discounted on CD, LP and digital until November 17th.

🔗 bio

12/11/2024

It’s time for another taste of Decius Vol. II (Splendour & Obedience)...

'Birth Of A Smirk' is taken from Decius' second album, Decius Vol. II (Splendour & Obedience) Released 31 January 2025. Pre-Order 2LP+/2LP/CD/DL: https://the...

05/11/2024

It’s week forty-three of THE GREAT LEAF SALE, and time to re-visit Bourne at his most elegant.

On 2017’s Isotach, skeletal piano motifs, an aching use of space and sparing cello arrangements are deployed to devastating effect. Recorded in his rural Yorkshire home, Bourne’s piano placed to overlook the moors while he worked, the album title is a nod to the weather, which played a part in its creation. The recordings took place during what Bourne described as “extreme weather”. If you listen carefully you can hear the wind and rain picked up on the microphones, the sparse instrumentation providing the calm in the eye of the storm.

The title track kicks off proceedings, having originally been conceived for the very first Piano Day in 2015. Nils Frahm had asked for a contribution, to which Bourne agreed and promptly forgot. ‘Isotach’ was written and recorded with a single microphone, the night before Piano Day. There’s nothing like leaving your homework until the last minute to focus the mind.

Isotach is reduced on LP, CD and digital until November 10th.

The Leaf Label recordings bundle is also reduced accordingly.

🔗 bio

29/10/2024

This time five years ago, we were preparing to release an album loosely based on slowly poisoning your co-workers. And the rest is history. It’s week forty-one of THE GREAT LEAF SALE!

Warmduscher’s third album, Tainted Lunch, will celebrate its fifth birthday on Friday. It features Iggy Pop and Kool Keith, funk, punk, hip-hop and lounge rock and the full cast of shady characters we’ve come to know and love from the Clams universe. Ideal for the Halloween school disco.

Duscher continue to go from strength to strength. A dish best served live, and they have plenty of live dates coming up. New album, Too Cold To Hold, is just around the corner. Picking up a Tainted Lunch bargain would be the perfect warm-up.

Tainted Lunch is discounted on LP, CD and digital until November 3rd.

The Leaf album bundle is also discounted.

See bio for details.

25/10/2024

Craven Faults' Bounds is out now. Your perfect autumn/winter companion.

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23/10/2024

Tune in...

Scenes from Bounds. Released 25.10.24Pre-order/pre-save: https://theleaflabel.net/cfbounds.OYDhttps://cravenfaults.comhttps://cravenfaults.bandcamp.com00:00 ...

22/10/2024

It’s THE GREAT LEAF SALE week forty-one, and we’re back in the Triosk extended universe.

It was only a couple of weeks ago that Triosk’s debut celebrated its twentieth birthday, and now Be Still, the debut solo album by keyboardist/piano player Adrian Klumpes turns eighteen this week. There was something special going on in Sydney in those days.

Recorded in a single five-hour session, all the sounds were captured in the same room, with the same mics, using the same piano. Simultaneously premeditated and spontaneous, the recordings strive for an edgy tranquility.

“I wanted to capture three moments,” Klumpes explained. “Creation, performance and process. And each of these with a certain stillness.”

At the time we described the album as “like a Rothko canvas - minimal and introspective, yet rich and intense; a rush of colour from a deliberately limited palette.” Which shows exactly how high-brow we were and also gives you a good idea of what the record sounds like. You have to say, that was good work on our part.

The artwork by Clemens Habicht, who also did the design for the Triosk releases, brings us full circle to Laurence Pike’s latest album, The Undreamt-of Centre. There’s still something special going on in Sydney.

Be Still is discounted on CD and digital until October 27th.

See bio 🔗

14/10/2024

THE GREAT LEAF SALE week forty - while Efterklang are taking their latest album, Things We Have In Common, for a lap around Japan, let’s take a look through the Leaf history books.

As previously discussed in GREAT LEAF SALE lore, Eferklang don’t lack for ambition. Everything they’ve done as a group, goes above and beyond, and Performing Parades is a case in point. Here is a document of the band performing their 2007 album Parades in full, with the The Danish National Chamber Orchestra at the Koncerthuset in Copenhagen in front of a capacity audience – a live album/concert film with 50 musicians on stage in full Efterklang regalia. They really don’t do things by half.

It is fifteen years on Saturday since Performing Parades was released. Get your paper-cone hats out and party like it’s 2009.

07/10/2024

It’s week thirty-nine of THE GREAT LEAF SALE, and we’re into the home straight. We put our foot to the floor with Wildbirds & Peacedrums at full volume.

Rhythm is the work of husband and wife duo Mariam Wallentin and Andreas Werliin and followed Heartcore (2008), The Snake (2009) and Rivers (2010).

“We decided this should be our ‘going back to our roots’ album,” Wallentin explained at the time. “Which is drums and vocals. Except for a bass line here and there, that is what it is. Drums and voice. Rhythms. We wanted the record to sound as intense as our live shows, and as chaotic as the world around us.”

This was Wildbirds at their most lean and hungry. In stripping back, they discovered an unblinking directness and taut muscularity honed from years of intensive live performance.

Incredibly, this album will turn ten years old next month. If it proves to be the final Wildbirds album, it’s safe to say they went out on an absolute high. Mariam and Andreas are still making incredible music in various guises. It’s well worth investigating Fire! Orchestra and the Oren Ambarchi/Johan Berthling/Andreas Werliin trio releases, and as luck would have it, Mariam (The Believer) released a brand-new album on Friday entitled ‘Breathing Techniques’. Dive in.

Rhythm is discounted on LP, CD and digital until October 13th. The four album bundle and remaining T-shirts have also been reduced.

Link in bio.